While we go to lengths to ensure that new versions of Perl don't break existing programs, it does happen. It's really, really important that we catch unintentional breakage BEFORE we release Perl 5.16.0. It is imperative that you test this release candidate with any software written in Perl which you use or maintain.

Similarly, we test Perl on a variety of operating systems on a number of platforms with several different compilers. If you're not 100% certain that we're testing yours, NOW is the time to make sure that Perl 5.16.0 builds and passes its tests on your platform.

If no "showstopper" class bugs are found in the next few days, we will release a virtually identical tarball as Perl 5.16.0 on or soon after Sunday, May 20, 2012.